(Editor's note: The following is excerpted from the penultimate chapter of David Astle's under-appreciated book The Babylonian Woe.)

In their inception, so-called political parties were other expression of the principle of rule of tyrant or dictator. Though apparently instituted in opposition to each other, such societies, or groups, or even persons, representing such seemingly conflicting political interests, were the very natural outcome of complete usurpation of the essence...